Ouroboros or the world inside out

Анна Давыдова-Городецкая

Ouroboros or the world inside out

I dedicate this work to my mother, Lyubov Nikolaevna, the woman who gave me life, and to my close friend Vyacheslav, the man who pointed me in the direction of freedom from ouroboric captivity

Illusion is reality.

Introduction

In retrospect, I realize that for a long time, for decades, I have been suffering from the throes of yearning, which especially tormented me if I was alone with myself on weekends and holidays. When I happened to wake up way before morning, this feeling would often intensify. I regarded it as prolonged depression, tried to work with a psychologist, take antidepressants, and distract myself with socializing and hobbies. However, everything was ineffective, and the longing returned.

At first, I sought the reasons outside of myself – in a long-troubled marriage, a lack of a stable personal life, housing issue, and financial instability. However, as the years passed and life improved – the marriage with its psychological traumas was left far behind, I purchased a home, and my financial situation stabilized – emotional and psychological comfort still eluded me.

I focused my attention on the search for a life partner, believing that once I found the person I dreamed of, all my problems stemming from loneliness would resolve themselves. I did meet such a man, as expected, after a brief sense of relief, everything returned to normal. I came to realize a simple truth: the problem lies inside my psyche and has little to do with external circumstances. I began to seek answers to the question of what, in fact, was wrong with me. Both professional and amateur psychologists in their online lectures discussed topics like auto-aggression, merging, co-dependency, the victim complex, abusers, narcissists, and even infants. These snippets of information and entire theories swirled in my mind, attempting to explain why my relationships unfolded as they did. Yet the suffocating longing wouldn't go away. During that time, I felt that my subconscious had something to reveal to me, but I couldn't figure out how to access it. When lying in a state of relaxed wakefulness before sleep, I imagined large, dark «fish» emerging from the depths of my subconscious, but I could not grasp their tails to understand them.

One day, in February 2024, I woke up in the middle of the night, lying awake with my thoughts racing about my failed life until it was time to get ready for work. I got up feeling as though I had been beaten all night. Suddenly, I realized that it wasn't just a metaphor; I was truly being "beaten," but I was doing it to myself with sadistic pleasure. This discovery struck me – I suddenly understood that this was auto-aggression in its purest form. I had previously imagined auto-aggression as something more obvious, like a person engaging in self-destructive behaviors when they fail, such as hitting themselves, calling themselves harsh names, biting their nails, slashing their wrists, or banging their head against the wall. However, I unexpectedly realized that auto-aggression also manifests as a fascinating state where two personalities exist in my mind: one is a successful person of God, and the other is an unsuccessful sinner. The first personality begins to lecture the second, listing all its transgressions and passing judgment on each one, endlessly. How interesting! Suddenly, I felt better. While still waking up in the morning, I managed to suppress these inner dialogues with sheer willpower. Even if I didn't fall back asleep, I no longer felt so beaten down. Great, I thought, it's done! I started feeling much better, sleeping well, and eventually began attending the Conservatoire. At that time, I compared myself to a rebuilt and restored grand piano that only needed tuning to be able to play a beautiful melody, whereas before, I felt like a mock piano, good for nothing.

About three months later, at the end of June, I had an unusual and very vivid dream in which I received a small lizard, about the size of a hen's egg, as a gift. It fit in the palm of my hand and was so cute and harmless that I instinctively reached out to feed it. I offered it a crumb of something tasty, and in that instant, it began to grow at an alarming rate, transforming into a fearsome and aggressively terrifying dragon that filled the entire room. There was no doubt about its intention to destroy me… and then I woke up. A little later, I realized the meaning of this dream: it represented auto-aggression, which can be quite harmless if kept in check, but if nurtured with even a hint of self-dissatisfaction, it can become destructive.

I became interested in exploring the essence of this phenomenon, realizing it might hold the key to solving my problems. I found that I thought best during classical music concerts and while walking through the winding alleys of Moscow. While walking, I took notes to capture my thoughts. Through observing myself and others, I realized that the issue lies not solely in auto-aggression; it is merely a part of the vicious cycle present in the psyche of an infantile or ouroboric personality (these adjectives will be used interchangeably in the text), to which, without a doubt, I belong.

By exploring the thread of auto-aggression, I uncovered a complex web of specific patterns responsible for almost all my reactions. I also confirmed that these patterns are not unique to me but are quite universal. I aimed to unravel this web, study, and organize the structure of my psyche, and make it healthier and more functional.

To my surprise and joy, I realized that simply becoming aware of these mechanisms, bringing them from the depths of the subconscious, significantly reduces their pathological impact. Understanding what is happening in the psyche at any given moment, what it is connected to, and what it might lead to, allows for a degree of control. Initially, this control requires effort, but over time, it leads to the formation of new neural connections, making more sensible behavior natural.

Thus, studying my own psyche proved to be not only interesting but also healing. I noticed that my emotional reactions, which led to conflicts and constant dissatisfaction with myself, were initially instantaneous and automatic. At first, I could only recognize what was happening, but not stop the reaction. Over time, a gap of about three seconds between the trigger and my reaction began to appear, which was enough to not only recognize but also, in some cases, stop irritation, resentment, passive external aggression, and so on.

As I practiced awareness, I developed the ability to stop undesirable psychological manifestations at their inception, without significant effort, and in most cases, automatically. This brought a stable psychological comfort into my life that I had never experienced before. If I could decipher the messages of my body through vague sensations and the messages of my subconscious through dreams, then it is definitely possible for anyone facing similar difficulties to do the same.

When I first began to contemplate the quirkiness of masking my own auto-aggression, a friend told me about her five-year-old autistic daughter. When she was very young, she would hit an adult with a scream when she demanded something but didn't get it. After being told that this behavior was unacceptable, she started hitting herself on the head in such situations. I was surprised to learn that auto-aggression is inherent in children, suggesting that people might be born with this peculiarity.

This led me to consider a metaphysical explanation for the phenomenon. A dream I had about a lizard turning into an attacking dragon, combined with the biblical myth of the Serpent, inspired my theory of Ouroboros.[1]

I present to the reader a journey into the world of my personal psychoanalysis, where the building blocks of this theory were gradually assembled. Initially, the concepts were not clearly formulated, but as I delved deeper into psychological patterns, they gained a clearer structure. I would compare my work to assembling a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand small pieces: as more disparate fragments find their place; the overall picture becomes more complete and clearer.

Professional psychologists might say that I have reinvented the wheel, but any coincidences are purely accidental. During the five months of self-analysis of my behavioral reactions, from June to October 2024, I did not listen to lectures on psychology, read books on psychology, or communicate with psychologists and psychoanalysts. My personal vision of the infantile personality is based solely on my own experience, interpreted not only from a practical but also from a philosophical point of view.

Prologue. Ouroboros

When I investigated my own auto-aggression, I found that it was not overt but masked by a sense of longing, which arose from thoughts about life's failures and the disparity between what I had and what I was aspiring to. These thoughts occurred when my mind was not occupied with pressing tasks, such as during free hours or at night. Upon realizing this and understanding that it could be addressed by stopping negative thoughts, I became very enthusiastic. I decided that by overcoming auto-aggression, I could pave the way to longevity.

As a doctor, I am well aware of the psychosomatic mechanisms of disease development and the fatal changes in the body triggered by the emotional sphere. I imagined it this way: no auto-aggression → no diseases → a person can live until they get bored. I thought it was foolish to ruin myself with my own hands and wondered why all those who lived before me got sick and died so early. There was a certain amount of irony in this, but I genuinely believed that by overcoming the mechanism of self-destruction, a person could live happily ever after.

The only thing that puzzled me was that few people seemed to achieve this. Around this time, a friend told me about the apparent auto-aggression in a small child who, due to their age and autism, did not understand much. It became clear that the issue was much more complex than I had thought. The mechanism of auto-aggression is likely embedded in the foundations of the human personality, making it impossible to suppress entirely. It is probably something that will eventually lead to the grave of everyone born, much sooner than we would like. But why?

Trying to answer this question marked the beginning of my fascinating journey into the world of the infantile personality, the world of Ouroboros.

In this work, I describe my view on the patterns of behavior and psychological reactions formed in early childhood that hinder psychological maturation. The infantile personality is characterized by devaluation, auto-aggression, and a constant oscillation between superiority and vulnerability. Additionally, the entire psyche is permeated with illusions about oneself and the world. Such a person is rarely satisfied with life, almost never develops healthy relationships with others, and seldom has a successful career. Even if there is family and career growth, he is still always dissatisfied with the result.

From a metaphysical point of view, we can imagine that the Serpent, who led the forebears of mankind to the Expulsion, incorporated his structure into the psyche of all their descendants to deprive them of the joy of being and, ultimately, to lead them to death through self-destruction. I imagined this structure in the form of Ouroboros, who symbolically eats himself, and the closed vicious circle of pathological reactions came to life in the form of this ancient symbol. Therefore, in the further narration, there will be many references to Ouroboros. Sometimes, I will correlate the described patterns with the hunger of this creature and the volume it occupies in the psyche.

I have based my work not on the theory of evolution, which posits that humans descended from apes, but on the Biblical story of Paradise Lost. First, a bit of ancient factology, and then a flight of fancy.

Let's introduce the first humans, Adam and Eve. God created Adam from clay and breathed life into him. A little later, Eve was created from Adam's rib, and they began to live in Paradise, which was called Eden. They were provided with everything they needed, were satisfied with everything, and were not worried about anything. They seemed perfect to themselves and to each other. All in all, they were happy.

In that Garden of Eden there were many trees, including two forbidden trees: «In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil». Gen 2:9.

God warned Adam that eating of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil leads to death: «but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die». Gen. 2:17.

In the same garden dwelt the Serpent: «The snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman,“Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?”. The woman said to the snake, “We may eat the fruit of the garden’s trees but not the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. God said, “Don’t eat from it, and don’t touch it, or you will die”. The snake said to the woman, “You won’t die! God knows that on the day you eat from it, you will see clearly and you will be like God, knowing good and evil». Gen. 3:1–6.

A number of questions arise, such as why did God create such a tree? And where did the Serpent come from? Here we can think about the balance of dark and light, and free will to choose sides, but that's a topic for another study. Although… we are not going to seriously criticize the Creator, are we? He wanted it and he created it! Just to be…

Let's get back to what the Scripture says: «The woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food and that the tree would provide wisdom, so she took some of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then they both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made garments for themselves.

During that day’s cool evening breeze, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees.

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

The man replied, “I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat?”

The man said, “The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate». Gen. 3:7–13.

So, the Serpent managed to seduce Eve, and she persuaded Adam, and they both ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Serpent promised them that they would become as perfect and intelligent as God himself, but the consequences of this act were totally unexpected. After eating the apple, Adam and Eve saw their nakedness at the same moment. They were ashamed – not because they had changed, but because their view of themselves had changed. I think this was the first act of self-discontent, in fact, the first act of auto-aggression, which included shame about their bodies and guilt about what they had done.

In expelling all three participants in this drama from Paradise, God cursed each one, he said to the Serpent: «Because you did this, you are the one cursed out of all the farm animals, out of all the wild animals. On your belly you will crawl, and dust you will eat every day of your life. I will put contempt between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. They will strike your head, but you will strike at their heels».

To Eve: «I will make your pregnancy very painful; in pain you will bear children. You will desire your husband, but he will rule over you».

To Adam: «Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate from the tree that I commanded “Don’t eat from it” cursed is the fertile land because of you; in pain you will eat from it every day of your life. Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field’s plants; by the sweat of your face, you will eat bread – until you return to the fertile land, since from it you were taken; you are soil, to the soil you will return». Gen. 3:14–19.

After the Fall of man «The man named his wife Eve because she is the mother of everyone who lives. The Lord God made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them». Gen. 3:20, 21. Afterward Adam and Eve descended to the Earth.

«The Lord God said, “The human being has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil”. Now, so he doesn’t stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to farm the fertile land from which he was taken. He drove out the human. To the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed winged creatures wielding flaming swords to guard the way to the tree of life». Gen. 3:22–24.

Now it's purely a fantasy. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – the eternal dichotomy… And if we imagine that the Serpent was a branch of this tree from the part responsible for the knowledge of evil, and its fruit was the apple, and it contained the DNA of the Serpent. It is hard to see anything good in this apple – it brought misery to those who ate it. God warned that the fruit of this tree is deadly, but man, endowed with his own mind, ignored the warning. So, with the help of an apple, the Serpent penetrated into the consciousness of the first people. And then penetrated into the consciousness of all their descendants, where regret about the lost Paradise and guilt for the first sinful fall also live. And, as the Serpent deceived naive forefathers, so now it continues to deceive no less naive you and me. He promises us that if we listen to his teachings, we will reach a certain fullness, and then we will be happy as in Paradise, knowing exactly that it is impossible. And we endlessly dream about that eternal happiness, try to achieve the fullness necessary for it, and constantly punish ourselves for not succeeding.

Thus, Ouroboros, swallowed with the apple, promises and punishes everyone and always. He promises a return to Paradise, punishes by striving for perfection and the impossibility of achieving it. He exists in the psyche of all people – the same evil that was the fruit of the tree of Eden. And this evil is the punishment for the original sin of the forefathers.

Now let us imagine an infant in the mother's womb – there, the infant is protected, always fed, never lonely, has no worries, is always warm, and does not know about its «inferiority». The infant does not have to do anything there, only sleep. The mother's womb, the memory of which lives in the subconscious of each of us, may well be associated with the lost Paradise.

Ouroboros, transmitted by inheritance, having originated in a new person in the «paradise» of the mother's womb, leads this person through self-destruction to death in the life following birth, so that in a succession of incarnations, they again find themselves in the "paradise of the womb" together with a new life.

God → Paradise → Adam and Eve → Expulsion → life of labor and care → death → return to the earth, "from which one is taken".

And similarly: mother (God) → womb (paradise) → child (Adam or Eve) → Expulsion (birth) → life poisoned by the poison of the Ouroboros → self-destruction → death → hope of repeating the cycle.

Of course, no Ouroboros exists in our consciousness, and this book is about the emotional reactions and behavioral options of a person stuck at the infantile stage of psychological development. But if we take this fantasy as the starting point of a journey into our subconscious, it will be easier to navigate there. Therefore, let us accept as axiomatic the fact that every human being has in their psyche the structure of «Ouroboros», which I will discuss in this essay, because they are descendants of Adam and Eve. They also have the experience of life in the "paradise of the womb" and the experience of «expulsion» from the "paradise of the womb" at the moment of birth, followed by helpless infancy. With a responsive mother, the person successfully lives through this time and grows into a realized personality. However, even an adult personality under stress or overwork can regress to an earlier stage of psychological development.

The trigger mechanism for keeping the infantile personality structure intact, with the arrest of mental maturation, is maternal or substitute rejection – intentional, forced, or accidental. Probably, the more responsive and warm the mother is, the fewer the consequences of this birth shock – the expulsion from the "paradise of the womb". Conversely, the more indifferent or depressed the mother is, the greater the contrast between the womb and life outside it, and the stronger the desire to return there. The very fact of birth, from the infant's point of view, is already a fact of rejection. With repeated (post-birth) rejection by the mother, this infantile stage is fixed, and maturation does not occur; the personality remains stuck in the ouroboric structure.

The child's psyche probably seeks an explanation for what happened within itself and fixes on the paradigm: "If I become a better person, I will be worthy of love". Thus, the closure in the ouroboric circle is due to the coldness and insensitivity of the adults around the infant, who respond only to maximum crying and fulfill minimal needs. The child receives attention only after suffering. Another paradigm entrenched in their psyche is: "If I suffer, there is a chance that I will be noticed and given favors".

This work is not about specific people; it is about you and me. According to my observations, the overwhelming majority of those with whom I have had the opportunity to communicate have, in the structure of their psyche, an Ouroboros of larger or smaller size with all its «charms». Only a small percentage of people can adequately pass all the stages of adulthood and grow into an adult, responsible person, living not in illusions but in reality. I don't know what this is due to, as I have very little experience with such people, but I have come to the conclusion that it is not necessarily because they had a cloudless childhood and an accepting mother. Moreover, having a loving but ouroboric mother, generally devoid of true empathy, does not guarantee that her child will not grow up to be an infant; rather, it guarantees the opposite. Perhaps these superhumans living in reality have some innate volitional or intellectual traits that allow them not to fall prey to illusions. Perhaps such people don't care whether their mother is loving or rejecting, ouroboric or adult. Perhaps they have an experienced soul that has gone through many incarnations and matured through the ages. Perhaps in time, I will find the answer to these questions.

Chapter 1. Auto-aggression. Anxiety. Longing

I have already written that I was prompted to study my psyche by the realization of the multifaceted nature of auto-aggression, which, as it turns out, is not at all what we used to think based on traditional ideas about this phenomenon. When I tried to understand and systematize the mechanisms by which my consciousness works, I felt as if I were walking in a circle in a dense fog, from which unclear outlines were emerging. The more circles I made, the more distinct the contours and details of the blocks that formed the circle became, and the more obvious it became that they were all interrelated. It was impossible to study one without bringing out and studying the others.

I discovered that auto-aggression is closely connected with the illusory view of the self, which, in turn, generates a certain reference view of «happiness» and the external world. This, in turn, generates the devaluation of the real world, which is different from the reference one. The comparison of these worlds inevitably plunges one into despondency, which leads to auto-aggression as an attempt to defeat one's own «inferiority» and achieve a state of "full value" where the dream of the ideal has already been achieved, but this state is constantly slipping away. And again, auto-aggression, vulnerability, devaluation. And on and on in a circle, over and over again.